


Hogwarts defiles Harry Potter (She wants him)

by SlySama



Series: Unfinished Works. [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 00:30:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14759216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlySama/pseuds/SlySama





	Hogwarts defiles Harry Potter (She wants him)

Leader of Light, Defeater of all Evil, Chosen One, Our Saviour Harry James Potter defeats the Dark Lord Voldemort on the 2nd of May 1998 on the grounds of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the tender age of Seventeen. 

It is with the greatest feelings of gratitude that we express our thanks to our shining Saviour for doing the duty that was placed on his shoulders so early in life and saving us from the terrible future with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his followers; all out of the goodness of his teenage angst-ridden heart. He gave up finishing his education to hunt down mystery objects that helped him defeat his enemy- our enemy that had plagued us for almost a century.   
Unfortunately, we cannot have the pleasure of expressing our wholehearted gratitude to Harry Potter within the public view as apparently our blessed young Saviour has vanished, gone missing since the early hours of the 5th of May, so we have been notified and yet to be seen since…  
With the help of all our readers, we hope to be able to say face to face how grateful we are to our Saviour Harry Potter. The Ministry as it happens, we hear, would like to award our young Mister Potter with the highest Order of Merlin for doing us this wonderful deed. 

Now, a word to our Harry, please come back to us. 

Harry threw down the Daily Prophet immediately upon finishing the short passage on the front page accompanied by a photograph of himself trying to escape the cameras. What a mockery, a farce. They had been his number one reason for leaving in the first place, his “adoring” public, his second of course being that he had come into a lot of power recently and was a lot less stable as it was harder to control the sudden increase in magical power. He did not believe that he would be wholly accepted anymore, because he had been able to defeat Voldemort at merely 17. 

Frankly, you would have to be senile or incredibly stupid not to recognise the import of that particular feat in and of itself. 

‘Mate?’ 

Harry shook his head, closing his aching eyes. That was, something else. He hadn’t completely vanished, not yet at any rate; he needed to attend funerals, sort out various trials that weren’t necessary in the slightest and do his “duty” to keep the innocent out of prison, then, then he would vanish and remove himself from his friends indefinitely; it was safer this way. They seemed to understand the reason he had to leave… 

‘Harry…’ 

Lifting up his raven head, Harry opened his eyes and blinked at his friend across the table chewing on her lip nervously and fiddling with her half empty teacup. ‘Yes?’ He urged, rubbing unconsciously at his temples that were fraught with tension. Hermione’s mouth opened twice before closing twice and remaining so, shaking her brown curls in the negative of whatever she was thinking. Harry blinked at her, a frown marring the skin between his brows. ‘Hermione, what is it?’ he asked. 

She sighed, ‘Are you absolutely positive that you need to go elsewhere? I’m sure that you can receive training to control your new magic here…in England.’ Ron, beside him, was nodding along with her as he had a piece of toast in his mouth. 

Oh. Licking dry lips, Harry sighed as he stood from the marbled table. ‘You know I would if that was the only reason, but it isn’t and you that Hermione. You know there isn’t anywhere here besides if anyone else knew that I couldn’t quite control my magic anymore, that I had gotten a serious increase upon defeating Voldemort, they would lock me up believing that I had probably been corrupted by the Snake himself before he snuffed it, gaining his “Evil” powers. If, there was even the slightest…’ 

‘They wouldn’t Harry!’ she interrupted. 

He went on, ‘If there was even the slightest chance that I would turn into another Dark Lord, I would be locked up tight and securely in Azkaban Prison, Hermione.’ He stared pointedly at her until her head lowered in momentary defeat. However, before she could throw back a retort, the raven took the chance and left the kitchen, his eyes showing his apologies to Ron who stared annoyedly. The raven made his way up the old staircase lined with old severed house elf heads; he wished they’d been able to remove them just as much as Hermione since they were creepy and revolting, but unfortunately, they had been stuck in place with the same permanent sticking charm old Mrs. Black’s Portrait was charmed with. Damn Sirius’ crazy old mother. 

The raven sat atop his mattress in the bedroom he would normally share with Ron when they were in residence at Grimmauld Place; at the moment he was using the room and Ron was bedding with Hermione in another. He dropped his head within his hands, the bandages that adorned the skin since the final battle scratching across his closed eyelids. He didn’t remove them, just wanting the headache to disappear-it was almost constant, the hurt, the ache, the knowing how much he was hurting his friends because he couldn’t continue to stay with them, here, in England for fear of accidently hurting someone and beyond repair. 

He had almost done this, with a very tame healing charm he had learnt from Madam Pomfrey that he had attempted to cast the moment he had stumbled into the Hogwarts Infirmary after the battle; apparently, she had immediately noticed, or immediately diagnosed with a quick wand flick that he was in possession of a shit tonne of rather unstable magic and had quickly deterred that attempt. 

Thank god. 

Of course, the power had not been the only thing he had taken away from the Battle of Hogwarts, but a number of substantial wounds that any “normal” human being would find seemingly horrendous and sickening to the eye; Harry almost gagged each time he changed the bandages after cleaning. He knew they would eventually heal, but considering the amount of unknown spells that had been cast at him and not diverted with his shield charms, they were healing without magic, mostly, and so would actually scar to some degree; because of this and because he didn’t wish to see them, he kept his wounds swathed in bandages and kept the balms gifted to him by Madam Pomfrey going every six hours. 

‘Harry? Are you reading to leave for Hogwarts?’ The voice came up from the bottom of the stairs and Harry sighed deeply, bemoaning his life what it currently was; a heaping pile of dragon dung mess. He pushed himself to his feet, grabbed socks and his shoes from the corner, slipped into them, grabbed his jacket with the hood hanging from the back of the old door and traipsed down the stairs looking for all the world like he’d rather be doing anything else in the entire world, than travelling to Hogwarts to say his goodbyes to people he had known, people he had loved, and that people he really hadn’t had anything to do with because it was the right thing to do; though the best thing he could have done was protect them from Death. 

‘Not really, no, but I don’t really have much of a choice; do I?’ He grumbled, rubbing once more at his temples in distress as he reached the bottom of the stairs. 

‘I’m sure it’ll go by quickly, mate.’ He was patted on the back as they walked toward the fireplace, having decided that they were apparently Flooing into Hogwarts instead of apparating; this could have been because it was a very real possibility that Harry’s magic would completely spiral and he’d find himself with 1 less head. He couldn’t help the annoyance at this though, even knowing his friends were only trying to be comforting and accommodating and making it seem less than it was in some misguided way. The pound of the back wasn’t something he really appreciated at the moment though…He hadn’t slept right last night- he pressed his back- he might have needed a new mattress. 

‘Mm.’ He hummed as he stepped forward first into the old brick fireplace, pulling the hood of his worn jacket over his darkened hair. 

[ ][ ][ ]

“We humbly thank you for taking these long three SPECIAL days out of your busy schedules to pay your respects here at Hogwarts hallowed grounds to those that lost their lives here in the fight for the future on the 2nd of May. They sacrificed their lives, fighting for us, for the freedom we have today; they deserve the very best respect, the best manners you can dredge up and the very best awards the Ministry can provide-don’t you agree?” The voice paused. 

“Thank you again for making it. Over the next three days we will be hearing from families of the deceased and listening to the speeches of those that survived, then we will have a midnight vigil out on the grounds in remembrance and show our respects by placing flowers at the newly erected memorial wall outside the Great Hall. Now, as you make your way further inside you will see a number of floating trays containing flutes of glistening white wine; if you would all take one as you come in, if you are of age of course, and seat yourselves where ever you wish.” There was a hand wave at the end of small speech. 

Harry rolled his eyes and shook his darkened cowl covered head as he entered to the voice echoing up from the dais; who was this man? Carefully stepping his way through the throng of people mingling in the entry he avoided walking to close to his friends so as not to draw any unwanted attention to them, were anyone to notice he was Harry Potter; Saviour. 

Walking into the Great Hall, he almost immediately gravitated to the Gryffindor Table, grabbing a flute distractedly as a tray floated on by then he sighed for the umpteenth time that morning, and to think, he had 3 days-worth of all this before he could even begin not to feel too guilty about leaving; he still had trials to sort out at the Ministry too. He had already done two in the last two days; it was tiring, and he wasn’t even physically attending the trials. 

It was twenty minutes into the second speech of the “first” night of the three day event that Harry jerked away from nowhere upon hearing a deep voice seemingly echoing behind him. It was near his ear, he turned hastily to find the man’s pale face inches from his own and eyebrows high up and beneath his lanky black hair. ‘Pro-Professor Snape!?’ Harry almost fell backwards as he leaned as far back from Snape as he could with haste. 

‘Mister Potter, I was unaware you were still in Britain, as according to the Daily Prophet this morning you’ve been gone for the last five days?’ His head was lowered, his body still bending to accommodate Harry’s seated position, unconscious or not, revealing the tender looking tissue of scars that would around his neck from the attack he had sustained from Nagini (Voldemort’s pet snake and a fucking stupid Horcrux) at the Shrieking Shack during the Battle of Hogwarts where Harry had taken the man’s painfilled memories and believing there was nothing he could do, had left the man for dead. 

He had received the hugest shock upon limping into the infirmary after Voldemort’s downfall at his own hands, drenched in his own blood, semi-conscious on his feet to find Snape semi-conscious on a bed being attentively seen to; he had tried to help the Matron, unaware of it himself that he had a more powerful magical core and a highly unstable one. He could, apparently, bring Hogwarts crashing to the ground with just a snap of his fingers; he wasn’t going to test that though. 

The raven quickly took a sip of wine before replying, ‘I’m incognito, if you hadn’t noticed, sir?’ He waved around subtly, toward his hood and shadowed face. In fact, now that he thought about it, how had Snape known? He stared unconsciously back at the older man with a frown that clearly expressed what he thought because the man nodded in understanding, that, or he’d completely just read Harry’s mind. 

‘I’m afraid I’ve known you for the last seven years Mister Potter. I think I can work out for myself whether or not you are being secretive, you are rather experienced in trying. Hidden in a crowd or not, Potter, you are not sitting all that far from your friends over there.’ He pointed low and Harry couldn’t help but turn his head in their direction. They seemed to be trying very hard not to turn in their direction, which he was kind of thankful for. ‘And I have, in fact, seen you wearing this jacket before. It is not new.’ He tapped the shoulder of said jacket with two fingers, causing Harry to jerk and move subtly away. 

‘Should I be concerned that you know that? You aren’t a stalker now are you, Professor?’ 

There was a twitch in the man’s jaw that could have been amusement before he sat himself down beside Harry. ‘I do not think so.’ 

‘Hm.’ Harry sipped from another flute as he took it from the tray that floated passed. He didn’t particularly care for the type of alcohol as much as Firewhisky, but he couldn’t do this three day shit completely sober; he wanted to at least be mildly out of it, brain fuzzed. It was far too depressing. ‘Was there something you particularly wanted with me, sir?’ He was curious. 

‘Indeed, there is, how perceptive of you. I wish to…Thank you…’ He looked slightly pained, mildly green in the face as he said as much. Clearly the man was trying hard to sound sincere (which was coming across in his voice) as he thanked a Potter for keeping him out of Azkaban Prison earlier that week. Harry’s eyebrows rose the tiniest bit beneath his hood and fringe, his lips pressing together as the Professor continued to speak in distress; un-interrupting. ‘…For the Patronus…Though I am sure, it would have been more affective and less time consuming were you to have actually been before the Wizengamot and defended my bravery and self-sacrifice, my forever keeping you out of harms way or at least trying to on the context that Lily Potter would have wanted you alive and living out your life the way you wanted, to make wonderfully hyperactive children of your own with a loving wife.’ Snape’s tone was slightly mocking by the end of his thanks, but Harry simply blinked, twice, as the man grabbed a flute from another passing tray and almost gulped the entire thing. 

To be fair, it probably would have been easier, especially as it had actually taken him a lot of concentration to have conjured his Patronus and sent it along with a message for the stuffy wizards and witches that were on the Wizengamot. ‘You’re…Welcome? I’m sure my Patronus was just fine, it worked well enough for Malfoy’s trial two days before yours, as he is here right?’ He waved vaguely backwards. 

Snape inclined his head in the affirmative. 

‘Even a Prat, or a Git, neither of you deserve to go to Prison for the rest of your lives.’ He was facing the table, his head lowered to see the knots there in the wood beneath his bandaged fingers, it was an effective way to avoid seeing the slightly angered look that would have been directed at him from the heat he could feel, that came immediately after his words. 

‘Well, I see, I will take my leave of you and reseat myself back with Mister Malfoy and your former classmates at the Slytherin Table over there. I do believe that Mister Malfoy is adamantly watching the proceedings under the guise of listening to a boring conversation between two prior fifth year students. Do try to behave rationally even under the stress of having to sit here and listen to all these depressing talks about the deceased. Perhaps, you should make that your last glass?’ He pointed toward the flute that was clasped within Harry’s fingers. 

He blinked down then back up as the man stood to his feet. ‘I think I am old enough to tell when too much, is too much Professor.’ Regardless he did unconsciously clench and unclench his fingers around the stem. 

‘Oh?’ Snape said, eyebrow raised once more as he took two steps before Harry’s reply. He halted with a foot midway in the air, his head turned awkwardly backwards.

Harry said nothing else and merely pressed the rim of the wine glass to his pliant lips, his green eyes attentively eyeing the Professor that had taunted him for years and would, perhaps, should he find out that Harry was not “completely” himself, gladly turn him over to the Minister for Magic and the scattering of Auror’s inside the Great Hall at the moment, to be thrown in Prison for the rest of his considerable life. Then again, perhaps not. Harry watched Snape until he sat himself back at the Slytherin Table with his houses students, he’d been curious why but after a brief register that the other Professor’s were at their house tables too, and the staff were scattered around, he realised there was no High table, and this actually made sense. 

It was unfortunate that the speeches apparently hadn’t fully settled in yet. He’d been hoping to only hear a few the first night and then stumble up to a suite of rooms somewhere in the castle, fuzzy brained and depressed. The more he heard, the more depressed he felt and fuzzier as he drank more with every horrible merciless word. 

‘We just wanted to thank everyone for doing their utmost when it came to protecting our children from the horrors of battle when there was no way for them to come home. Thank you for keeping them as out of harms way as you possible could, I know all us parents appreciate those that did this.’ 

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you for keeping my children safe.’ 

There was one woman that practically ran up onto the podium, her husband trudging along in her wake, clearly not wanting to make any speeches and simply let everyone mourn in peace; as they should. She began with the usual “Thank you” and then started to tear-up but she wasn’t finished talking and Harry sighed in defeat with her husband, only half-listening until she started in on him. 

‘Unfortunately, I cannot say thank you to our “Saviour” (she used quotation marks and her husband cringed behind her, shrinking back into the high table) as he did not protect our children, he did not shield them as he should have from such atrocities. Where was this saviour we all seem to think we owe? Fighting, yes, but for who? For us? Or for himself? He gave us this freedom we have but he took the same freedom from those that he did not protect. Did he not simply fight to avenge his parents? To me, this is what he did or he would have done more, he would have protected the children, protected their futures, are they not our future? IF this precious saviour of ours was worth our respect and admiration, wouldn’t he be here, right now, paying his respects and apologising? He is no protector, no saviour, he was a boy out for vengeance. If he was so great he would have done more whilst he was “doing his duty” to the wizarding world.’ 

Harry sat blinking, what? Not protected? He’d done his fucking best! Simply out for vengeance? He had wanted Voldemort to pay but not simply because his parents had been murdered before he could even remember them, because Voldemort had been a bad human being, a monster and he had needed to be stopped. His duty? He had come to terms with what he had to do, and that had not been easy. He had given up a lot for these people, had gone through a lot of distress and turmoil for these people, he had tried to protect as many people as he could; he couldn’t protect everyone! His DUTY?! 

The raven screamed internally and turned his head toward Hermione across the table and down a few meters with Ron at her side; they were both staring at him from under their lashes. He put everything into that returned stare. “Was this not what I had said? Was this not what I had said earlier?!” this was what he tried express to them. Their eyes turned sad as they continued staring discreetly, trying to seem like they weren’t in fact staring at him and having a silent internal struggle. 

If he had had the power he would have protected everyone, he’d encase them in a protective bubble that spanned the whole country if he had had the power; but he hadn’t and he wasn’t even sure there was enough power in the world to do that. Didn’t he deserve a little leniency? He had saved them, hadn’t he? Yes, people had lost their lives and he hated this but he couldn’t reverse time (to dangerous) and they weren’t the only ones that had lost someone precious to them. They would no longer have a future filled with fear, hate, murder, tyranny and biased hypocritical shit. 

‘I apologise, I am so sorry for my wife, she’s a bit distraught (a bit?), our two young children did not come home as they were here at the battle and unfortunately were not protected as well as they could have been…’ The husband swallowed his own tears as he caught his wife’s flailing arms and finally dragged her back to their seats at the Ravenclaw Table. He looked flustered and Harry, with a tinge of spite, hoped he felt embarrassed for his wife’s unjust behaviour as he drained the glass he had and took another as it floated by. 

After this couple, it seemed to be a running theme to take their hateful and distraught feelings out on Harry Potter, making their feelings toward the “missing” saviour quite clear to all those present. Some couples promised to drag him back from across country or ocean to all the future anniversaries, to make him sit, glued to a bench and listen to all this again. Some even promised to make him suffer the same fate with his own future children which was quite alarming and made him pause and flare further pink (as the alcohol was starting to build in his system), it was such a harsh thing to say, a horrible thing to say, especially as that person they were all putting down was actually right there, within the overheated and crowded room, and three perhaps four people actually knew it. 

The raven avoided eye contact with any of those people, head lowered to the table and bandaged finger tracing the grooves in the wood. His eyelids were heavy so he scrubbed at them from time to time only to find that he was crying, his eyelashes sticky with tears as they clung on before dropping to his cheeks under shadow; he was thankful for the shadow of his hood as he hadn’t realised just how affected he had been by all the dismissiveness and angriness, and truths that those people spouted into the crowded room. 

They hadn’t the slightest clue what his life had been like and yet, they treated him like this. Now he knew, for sure, that he had to leave. He knew for sure that they would sentence him to life in Azkaban if word were to get out that he was now in possession of a lot of magical power “dubious” power that he had not been before. 

For several hauntingly long minutes all Harry heard was the words humming through his buzzing head. Then, unable to stand it much longer he got up from the bench, food appearing and made his way as inconspicuously as humanly, or not so humanly as the case was, out of the Great Hall and up the several hundred stairs that shifted within Hogwarts confining ancient walls. He wasn’t sure where he was heading exactly or if he shouldn’t simply leave and pay his respects in the dead of night before he did. Perhaps, he’d head up to the Astronomy Tower? In his depressed state, a nice walk along the outer edges would be nice, but then he was sure that his demise were he to jump from them might affect his friends badly. He sighed despondently, grumbling to himself as he tripped up the stairs with clumsy drunken feet; apparently, he had had a lot more than he’d thought down in the Great Hall, and walking up five flights of stairs seemingly showed that. 

‘Are you lonely?’ 

Harry’s entire body jumped at the girlish voice and the dark haired, silver eyed, deathly pale, nightgown wearing young women that stood before him on the Fifth Floor landing. The heel of his boot slipped at his startlement and he cried out, flailing as his body began to fall backwards; perhaps this was better? An accidental death down the Hogwarts stairs? It was his home, the only proper home he had known, had loved even with all the bad times. 

‘Watch it, that is the last thing I want to see, you falling down the stairs to your death at such a young age.’ Opening frightened emerald eyes immediately upon hearing the muttered words, somehow quite clearly, he found that somehow he had been stopped and his body was now hovering awkwardly above the stairs he had been ab to tumble down; heartrate spiking at being levitated by the seemingly very angelic epitome of “Death” Harry swallowed and pressed himself instinctively and immediately toward the stone wall as he was straightened and set back onto his boots. Her arms and hands had not moved an inch from being clasped behind her back; he was sure of it. 

‘Your cowl is down.’ She pointed the, with a glistening and polished fingernail in his direction and he swallowed. He may have been the Saviour, for what good it seemed to do downstairs with all the mourning families full of anger, and he may have come into a shit tonne of power that he couldn’t seem to control, and he may have been…not entirely human anymore but that didn’t mean that this type of creepy ass shit didn’t frighten him to some degree. He hastened to replace the hood over his black hair before anyone could come up for their own air and recognised who he was. 

‘Who are you?’ He closed his eyes secondly upon hearing his voice come out as a quake. 

‘Who, am I? Hm, the pretty girl that saved your life just now?’ He blinked at her playful voice and smiling features, his hands in his jacket pockets and his fingers wrapped tightly around the thin piece of hawthorn buried within; he wasn’t stupid enough not to have it on his possession, considering who he was, but he also wasn’t stupid enough to use it unless it was absolutely necessary. ‘My name is Helena.’ 

‘…Helena, Helena what?’ He questioned, his pressing more firmly around the stolen wood, because frankly he had stolen it from Draco Malfoy during the war. 

‘Well, I don’t ask for yours but frankly I know your name is Harry Potter. Majik. My name is Helena Majik, with a “J” and a “K”. Do you feel better, or worse for asking?’ She was blinking at him, her silver eyes seemingly trying to assess him and how he was going to react. Not that he understood what was going on here and why\  
exactly was someone on the Fifth Floor landing in a nightgown anyway? When everyone was downstairs and in formal clothes to boot? 

‘I don’t know…Honestly?’ He asked, still pressed against the stone of the wall. She nodded and he continued. ‘I think it raises more questions about just who you are and why you were able to save me just now without seemingly doing anything, because I am almost 90% sure that your posture didn’t change in the slightest from when I first saw you and it startled me to when I saw you upon being placed on my feet. I’ve also never heard your name before, not to mention you are up on the Fifth Floor landing in nothing but a nightgown when everyone is downstairs in the Great Hall mourning and throwing insults at their saviour; not that he cares much for the titles.’ He took a breath. 

‘Just who are you? Did you previously go to school here?’ Though, just by her appearance she looked younger than he did and that wasn’t including that he looked older than he was because of all the stress. 

‘I am Helena Majik, and I can not want some air from that depressing atmosphere? You, yourself are up on the Fifth Floor landing, if I may say so are you not suspicious yourself Mister Potter?’ She pointed. 

He stared at her incredulously. ‘You just…Decided to change into your nightdress and then wander the castle in it? My name is Harry, not Mister Potter; from the looks, we aren’t that different in age.’ She smiled. He blinked. ‘Besides, at least I know I have a reason to be here, but I’ve never heard of you and I think I’d remember having seen you during school.’ 

She nodded in seeming understanding. ‘I could not sleep…’ Her silver eyes then wandered which caused Harry to frown before they quickly realigned with his own green that stared behind golden frames. ‘Harry then. Should I take that as something of a compliment? Are you trying to say I look quite pretty, that you would not soon forget?’ Her smile was disarming and wicked all at the same time and Harry couldn’t help but swallow, suddenly doubting his sexuality which he had been pretty sure about. She really was quite beautiful but the combination just seemed, dangerous, somehow. 

The prettiness, the niceness, the playful tones. Somehow, the combination was screaming danger at Harry, and it didn’t help that he had never heard her name before, seen her or that he had a lot of alcohol in his system. 

Apparently, she also seemed to find that switch he had acquired on the battlefield that seemingly didn’t care one bit about it all. He swallowed nervously as she came an inch closer for every second that passed by he said nothing. 

‘I want to show you something, will you follow me?’ She held her hand out, palm up and he frowned down at it. ‘It’s a very beautiful place. You wouldn’t believe it’s a room inside of Hogwarts. You would think you were outdoors. It’s very pretty and very tranquil and it’s quiet and relaxing; you might even find that there are some books within that might intrigue you?’ It seemed like she was trying to coax him, manipulate him into following a stranger blinding to somewhere within Hogwarts he had probably never been to. You could understand his hesitation and anxiety at this, his hands shook though normally this part of his ill-control he could control with a lot of concentration. His magic was buzzing with instability as he worried. ‘I won’t hurt you, do I look like someone that would be willing to harm such a handsome young man?’ The way she spoke was odd. She smiled again and a part of him seemed to melt into goo and he found himself reaching out for her hand and taking it. 

Despite his mind screaming at him “what are you doing, you idiot?!” he found himself moments later being dragged down the Fifth Floor corridor, his wrist encased in the strong grip of the smaller hand. Dragged down another corridor that spiralled onto another and yet another that forked in two directions; they took the left and then a small slope downward led toward a small staircase that spiralled here down into an intricate patterned antechamber of vines and marble; the stone wall slid open, splitting right down the middle with a small whistle from the girl in front of him, beyond was a tunnel, pitch black and claustrophobic. 

It was lit, seconds before they entered with the tiniest lights the raven had ever seen that he could have said they might have been fairies if they hadn’t been shimmering oddly and shaped like yellow orbs-the lights followed them along the tunnel as Helena Majik dragged Harry by his hand now toward a redlined door (he thought it was red anyway, it was hard to tell in the dim lighting); it was the only thing at the end of the tunnel. 

Helena held his hand as he halted second by second, dragging him along. He was afraid of what was going to be on the other side of that door that was intricately lined with carved vines, laced with marble veins that seemed to pulse as they got closer the lights illuminated the wooden surface and a golden snake doorhandle that twisted and hissed affectionately as Helena grabbed for it. 

It flew open and Harry sputtered as a cold breeze blew into his features. The strange lights followed them into the next room, illuminated the interior as the snake handled door closed behind them with a horribly creaky sound and the Snake hissing as if he were laughing; it didn’t speak but he was afraid it was clearly mocking him and telling him that she may be pretty she was fucking dangerous and he’d just let himself be alone with her for the last 20 or so minutes. He had no idea what came next. He swallowed nervously as she let go of his sweating palm and tapped across the floor on bare feet to something he could vaguely see was a wall sconce; it became clear that it was in fact a wall sconce when it lit up blindingly, seconds later, Harry’s mouth dropped. 

‘What.’ He cleared his throat, his body turning to look around it. ‘What is this place? I’ve never seen this place before and I’ve…’ He was about to say he knew most places in Hogwarts considering he liked to wander and he had the Marauder’s Map; he’d even updated it with a little help from Hermione’s research. He hadn’t even been down any of the corridors they had taken to get here, though, those first two he had. 

She smiled, turning away and seating herself beyond the normal room on a magnificently green grassed mound with wild flowers spattered around it, an oak tree shading it from an artificial sun (at least, he thought), fruits littered the ground before a running stream that started (or ended) with a waterfall and small fairies were puttering around blossoming berry bushes that “lined” the walls. ‘Come in.’ She beckoned. 

He took a step forward, the only thing out of place that revealed it wasn’t in fact outdoors was that there was a wall sconce hovering in the “sky”, the door that he had just walked passed that seem to blend away as it closed behind him and his own sense that it was, in fact, a room in Hogwarts. Why had she brought him here? And, these books? Harry’s mouth opened to ask but she walked calmly over to him, her bare feet almost sinking into the soft grass that he felt once she had dragged him over to a spot by the crystal stream and divested him of his shoes and socks. 

He dipped his feet into the water when she urged and he almost moaned as the water trickled around his toes and ankles, soothing any aches that were there. He watched the Koi fish and Gold fish as they swam around his feet and between small rocks on the riverbed that seemed both far and close. 

He had almost completely forgotten about Helena until she started whispering lowly to three little sparkling fairies some ways off, they twittered excitedly and she giggled back. Why had she brought him to this room? Who was she? Who was Helena Majik? He didn’t believe that she had even once been downstairs in the Great Hall with all those people, and he certainly didn’t believe that she had been trying to sleep but couldn’t so went out for some air and a walk. He couldn’t believe this. He couldn’t believe that she had in fact attended Hogwarts at all, something just didn’t add up in Harry’s head about this. Something about her, something about Helena Majik just didn’t add up, something was…Off. 

‘Would you like a drink?’ 

Harry jumped, head coming up faster than his neck wished it too. ‘What?’ 

‘A drink, Harry, would you like a drink?’ She held out a frosted lilac bottle that she had somehow acquired in the last two minutes with two frosted crystal goblets of a slightly deeper shade of lilac. He returned to a frown but nodded slowly, accepting a goblet and the pink liquid that poured into his glass. 

[ ][ ][ ]

‘Hah.’ 

‘Hnn Ha.’ 

‘Nn Haa Hah Nng.’ 

Well…So much for being entirely certain that he was Gay…   
The four poster bed rocked against the wall of ivory, the veins of marble pulsed as the wood struck the surface. His hips thrust forward with a snap, this being the movement that caused the bed to shift forward with a bang into the stone. His hands held hers down on the mattress, pushing her into the silken sheet as he rocked into her with gusto, pushing himself as far as he could into her glorious heat. 

He had no idea how he had gotten to this point, or where they had gone to, to acquire a bedroom lined with bookcases, a small study in the corner and a leather sofa that seemed to section off the room as a reading nook in the opposite corner but at the moment his mind was on nothing else but the glorious wet heat, the softness of the mattress that almost seemed to suck them in and push them closer together and the sheets that seemed to soak up his sweat that dripped from their activity and dried immediately. 

Harry pressed his dried lips to hers, sliding his tongue into the wet cavern of her womanly mouth, battling with her tongue and submitting the appendage to his dominance. He came away slightly confused by the glassy-eyed look in her silver irises and the wispy smoke that emitted from his mouth as a residue from hers as he breathed outwards but he shook this off to continue his movements with harshness, roughness and animalistic grunts. 

‘Nnn Ha Heh, Heh Nng Haa.’ 

‘Haah, Haah, Ha, Ha, Nnn, Mmm.’ He went back in for another kiss. 

‘Mmm, Mm, Nn, Nnn, Huu, HnnnNNN!!!’ Harry pushed the deepest he could and stilled, eyes screwed tightly shut, glasses missing, hands now pressed to her pale hips and groaned out his orgasm. He wasn’t sure if she had had her own alongside his but he slid from her with a grossly sounding SQUELSH and groaned, breathing heavily as he bounced back onto the mattress beside her, head falling into the large silver pillow that lay there. Slowly, one by one, his memories of the recent events surfaced, the scenery from earlier, those fairies, Helena Majik’s sweet disarming smiles and secret mumblings. 

Shit. 

‘Helena, did you give me Fairy Wine?’ He questioned, eyes staring up unseeingly at the ceiling of the mysterious room. Fairy wine made you lose your inhibitions a lot quicker than normal alcohol and considering he was already somewhat drunk before, this obviously hadn’t gone well for Harry. He sat up straight, grabbing his frames from the side table of marble and placing on his nose he pulled the sheet up to cover his manhood not that he really had reason to considering he’d just apparently slept with Helena; normally Harry did not forget his own morals and sleep with random strangers, let alone did he forget his own orientation. ‘Helena?’ He questioned, turning to face her but instead of seeing her about to answer his lips were covered with hers, stiff for only a moment from the shock his lips then became pliant and her tongue was making its way inside his mouth, swiping across his own and briefly dancing, until he pushed her forcefully away and held her at arms-length. 

He breathed heavily, feeling that same strange slight coolness and wispiness that had assaulted him during coitus with her earlier. Upon opening eyes that were closed he stared hard into her silver eyes, he saw for a brief split second that wispy smoke trailing from their lips and into the atmosphere. ‘Alright, I wish to ask you a question Helena, no excuses, no distractions, no more lies. Do you understand me?’ He let a brief, mildly controlled electric shock of magic run through his fingers and into her pale skin. He watched as she closed her eyes against the assault and flinched the tiniest bit from his magic but she nodded. 

‘Good. Exactly what are you? Because normally, humans don’t go emitting smoke from their mouths when they kiss each other. You aren’t, you aren’t a…Grim Reaper, are you?’ 

Her lips twitched and her eyebrows did a little dance high to her forehead, disappearing beneath her wayward dark fringe before laughing, her head shaking at his shaky query. ‘Of course not, don’t be silly. But, nothing held back, no excuses, no distractions, no more lies but I can’t specifically tell you what you want to hear, you’ll have to look it up in the bookcases that line the walls over there.’ She pointed. He turned to stare at them and follow them to the ceiling, frowning once more. 

‘Why can’t you tell me specifically? Why do I need to rummage through old books?’ 

‘Reading won’t hurt you, well, unless you pick up a dangerous book, then it might.’ She looked elsewhere and then chuckled briefly at his annoyed stare. ‘But I’ve been told not tell anyone myself. An order. If someone wishes to know, then they must read his journals, over there.’ She pointed again and Harry’s head turned back in that direction, his green eyes scanning, distractedly across the largest titles that he could see from this distance with his glasses. Don’t ask him how he sees the snitch with bad eyesight and glasses, he believed it was mostly just instinct. A lot of the larger titles said these books were of the dark arts variety, others, personal potions journals. 

‘His journals.’ Harry only just then picked up on the “His” in her words. He turned back to face the dark-haired girl that had essentially gotten him drunk and had sex with him without his sober permission, his hands tightening. 

‘Yes.’ She said. 

His head tilting, Harry’s eyes took on a faraway look, taking him back to the secretive and complicated maze-like way in which they had gotten to the room earlier, the way this room had been hidden behind a wall of ivy and flowers in the meadow room, the snake doorhandles, the intricacies of the wall decorations, the bedsheets and pillowcases, the floormat and furniture, the silvery letters on the books in the bookcases. Fuck. ‘You mean Salazar Slytherin, don’t you?’ His eyes steadily returned to stare into the silver and stayed that way, boring into her soul until her head lowered in the affirmative. 

‘What, do you, have ANYTHING to do with Salazar Slytherin?’ He let go harshly and stood, grabbing at his pants and stamping over to the bookcases as he shoved his appendage into both materials. 

She said nothing, submissively sitting on the bed as he angrily ran his fingers across several of the tomes that indeed spoke that Salazar Slytherin himself owned them. Second by second, with every book that Harry’s eyes skimmed over, he became more and more angry that he had been so manipulated (and didn’t that make sense?) by someone or something to do with Salazar fucking Slytherin. 

‘You know…He wasn’t as bad as the legends say he was.’ 

Harry’s hand paused on the binding of a promising look book on magical cores. ‘What?’ He turned, hand around the book, fingernails darkened with black and eyes blazing. She reared back the tiniest bit upon seeing this but as she covered herself with her nightgown once more, she repeated herself with more confidence and authority. 

‘He was not as bad as the legends proclaim him to be, Harry Potter.’ 

‘And how would you know that, Hm?’ He sniped. ‘Salazar Slytherin raised a Basilisk in the school that he helped build a thousand years ago because he couldn’t get his way with the other founders. He left beneath the school for a day his heir would come to Hogwarts and finish what he started. A girl died because of it 70 odd years ago, people almost died years ago, in my second year, fuck, because I speak parseltongue, which was not my choice, they believed I was doing it for a while until I defeated the Basilisk.’ He glowered. 

She walked close, ‘Read the journals he wrote within those bookcases and you will learn the truth, you will understand what I mean when I say he was not as bad as he was depicted in history.’ She pointed once more and then suddenly, she vanished, a wispy smoke remaining in her place for the briefest of moments that he almost reached out and touched it, but he blinked and threw himself down the leather sofa to read a book as he plucked it from the closest shelf. 

The raven was shaking his head as he began to read the first passage of the journal he had grasped, this was a mere introduction of whom had written within the notebook, so, Salazar Slytherin himself, co-Founder of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

[ ] [ ] [ ] 

Five hours later and Harry had gone through five other journals of Salazar Slytherin and one other, and he was beyond confused, it wasn’t that it wasn’t understandable ink-wise it was that the words on the pages themselves barely made any sense. He wasn’t sure he was even reading a sane person’s musings and observations. Calmed down from earlier and blinking in befuddlement the raven stared down at the middle page of this fifth book he still held, scrubbing at his eyes beneath their frames. 

“She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She had the brains of Rowena, the humbleness and kindness of Helga, the courage, the bravery of Godric and the cunningness and ambition of myself, Salazar Slytherin. She had all the traits we all based the four houses on; it was impossible to place her in just one. She was the perfect young goddess in life, silky black hair down to her midsection, silver sparkling eyes and the purest alabaster skin as if she were made from a dream. 

Now, she would make a beautiful and spectacular substitute for US when we are all long gone and unable to protect Hogwarts.

As the friendship between the four us friends shifted and my ideals weren’t thought highly of, I feared that I would be pushed from our magnificent castle and would not be able to see how she becomes a beautiful Soul. I feared that this push to leave would be sooner rather than later and I was right; I had just enough time to set it up, create our protector, before I left. 

I have named her, Helena Silver Majik.” 

Harry blinked through the passage then blinked again and re-rubbed his eyes as he re-read the last few words. ‘I have named her, Helena, Silver, Majik.’ ‘What?’ He spoke into the quite room. ‘Helena!!’ He shouted seconds later, curious if she would appear before him or if she would avoid him until he completely understood what she was and how she knew Slytherin wasn’t all that bad a person but she appeared; in a wisp of smoke and her nightgown, the smoke curled around her until her entire body was there, standing before him. Harry stared. ‘Salazar Slytherin, he made you?’ ‘You aren’t human?’ 

Helena’s posture went rigid for a moment but her dark head of hair lowered in an affirming nod without words. Harry sat up straight, feet slamming down onto the dusty carpet beneath the couch. She was a creation, Salazar Slytherin had created her to protect Hogwarts. ‘You, are Hogwarts?’ His voice was a whisper, he wasn’t sure how correct that was or if it were truth that he had read but he voiced it anyway. Her head went down in another affirming nod without any words; she hadn’t looked at him so far. 

He fell back, head hitting the back of the leather. ‘Let me just…’ He rubbed at a temple with one hand, his other still in possession of the man’s journal. ‘In accordance with this journal, of Slytherin, and that one, (he pointed; he had found a red-bound book, the only one, that apparently belonged to Godric Gryffindor), you, are Helena Silver Majik. The, uh, “Soul” (he used quotations in the air around the book) of their boarding school for witches and wizards; i.e. Hogwarts.’ He breathed heavily. ‘I haven’t read everything and half of it I really don’t understand, at all, it’s as if he was writing in code or something and only Godric was in the know about it (he waved to the red-bound book) but that seemed to throw itself out of the pages so I thought I’d try.’ 

He took another breather, rubbing his spare hand down his cheek. ‘What I don’t get is, how are you here now?’ He pointed down. ‘If you are the Soul of Hogwarts, if you are really it’s protector then where were you for the last thousand odd years? No one has heard of you, no one has seen of you or it would have been written somewhere. I certainly haven’t seen you protecting Hogwarts, where were you when the Battle was raging, where were you during Riddle’s time at Hogwarts; you let him kill someone.’ He stared pointedly; she still hadn’t looked up from her last head nod. ‘I have done what supposedly is your job more times than I care to count.’ ‘And suddenly you’re here and your wanting to have intercourse with me.’ That was the main thing he was confused about, how let alone why on God’s Green Earth, in Merlin’s Realm, would the Soul of Hogwarts want to have sex with one of it’s seventeen year old students, or, prior students as the case may be; it was a very human thing to do, in a strange sort of way.

The “Soul” twirled a lock of her dark hair and began plaiting it, her silver eyes remained downcast to her hair as she spoke to him. ‘I have protected this school. I have done my best with the HIBERNATION Salazar saw fit to place me under when he left on very bad terms with the other Founders. There is not a day that I do not watch my guests, my family, don’t you dare tell me that I am not doing what was programmed into me. It is all I have been doing and I cried upon seeing my walls demolished, seeing my students slaughtered like they were nothing, my staircases crumbling, but had there been more that I could do, I would have done something, but there wasn’t. I was stuck, in this room, in an animated sleep. Once my protections had come down and the battle had commenced there was something that re-awoke inside me and I awoke to screams echoing down my hallways, people dying in my walls. You do not know how much that devastates me.’ Her voice was calm, not going any higher than a whisper but it grew angry as her fingers twined the strands of her hair together. 

Harry froze at the tone, well… ‘Believe it or not, Harry, but I have watched you since the moment you entered these hallowed halls, from the first moment you stepped foot on these ancient grounds, even in animated sleep. I have done my best, my utmost best just as Professor Snape has done, to keep you as safe and alive throughout your seven years here, though it was only six, as I could. You didn’t make it easy for anyone that was trying. Perhaps…After a time…I grew to have strong feelings for you. You are one of the ones I most fiercely tried to protect; I knew what you had to accomplish, I hear. 

As a favourite of the Portrait of Godric Gryffindor, perhaps you are not someone Salazar would have liked very much for me to develop feelings for. Though, I don’t believe he believed I would develop feelings for anyone, I am a creation. But you are powerful and I do believe that…’ She trailed, sounding frustrated. 

‘What?’ Harry queried. 

‘I believe that Salazar would approve of such a strong magical signature, such a strong…Human being, even if he is the favourite of Godric Gryffindor’s Portrait.’ Her silver eyes finally came up to meet his baffled green ones and he stared intently. Feelings? She had strong feelings for him, was that possible? She was sentient, sure, but she wasn’t human was she, how could she have feelings? Harry sighed in frustration, scrubbing at the sides of his head in annoyance. 

‘Helena, what exactly was the purpose you had when you slept with me?’ He feared the answer to this question now, but he asked anyway. 

‘To bare children, powerful protectors of Hogwarts. I may have been created to protect what they had built, by one of them and not approved of the other three, but at some point, the magic has to wear, doesn’t it? Someone must protect Hogwarts. They will be strong, a new breed of magic.’ She said this so seriously, so calm, that Harry feared she wasn’t the least bit kidding; he swallowed nervously. 

‘Helena, what exactly are you…You can, strong and powerful my magic may be but my sperm—

She cut across. ‘Your sperm has already done its duty.’ Her eyes were intent pools of silver and her voice still calm and serious as she let the plait she had been weaving drop back to her breast. She lent forward, so that their faces were inches apart. Harry’s eyes went wide as he stared, his mouth agape at the strong interruption. 

‘I’m sorry?’ He choked. 

‘I am already well on my way too—

He cut across her. His hand waving at her covered stomach jerkily. ‘This is a lot to take in…’ He whispered, his voice still choked. ‘You can have children…’ 

She nodded, ‘Once I have swelled and I have given birth to our children, they will come to you and you shall raise them until they are ready to return and attend Hogwarts as my students. Of course, you shall return with them and teach, because you are a good teacher.’ 

He stared, blinking blankly. Children? ‘Teacher?’ He questioned. 

‘Yes. I saw you teaching all those students Harry, in your Fifth Year, you were excellent and you will be brilliant as one of the official staff of this magnificent school. I am sure that Minerva McGonagall, the Headmistress, if it hasn’t changed to Headmaster Severus Snape by then, will allow you to be a teacher here. I have no doubts to it. They both understand your potentials, your greatness in teaching others. If there is nothing else to discuss right now, I shall leave you to read the rest and understand more about the situation; the how’s the why’s.’ She smiled at him, pityingly or indulgently, and then she disappeared in the same way she had reappeared, swirling in a wisp of grey smoke. 

He sighed heavily, re-grabbing the leather bound journal he had let go at some point. Pregnant, she had wanted to sleep with him to fall pregnant; and she had, fallen pregnant, immediately. How the fuck?! He made a grunting, growling noise in the back of his throat in frustration. So much for forced Health Classes. He shook himself roughly, bringing his feet back up onto the sofa and bringing the book up to his face he began to read once more. 

The raven spent several hours trying not to think about anything else but what he was reading in the books that were now scattered around him. For a while, not approved of, huh? It was really hard to do but then he came across something that thrust anything else out the window of his ear canal. Helena Silver Majik had in fact been a student of Hogwarts, way back when, when the founders had still been doing the teaching themselves. 

She had never been sorted, at least, not into any one house. That part he had read many hours ago now, seemed to make a little more sense. But how did a student, become the soul of Hogwarts, how could she be “created” if she had been alive? 

Apparently, as Harry read on and on, she could be when she had been hunted down and murdered by muggle’s that were on a Witch Hunt, and Salazar Slytherin liked to experiment. 

“I knew that it was wrong, I knew we were forbidden, I knew that the strong sense of “protect her” was not just my own and the other founders felt this. But mine was stronger, for good reason. She was mine. I was hers. 

When we heard what had happened early during one of the school holidays of her sixth year, distraught, hoping it wasn’t truth, we rushed toward her village and bringing her back to Hogwarts, we sat with her in the infirmary. I sat with her, all day and night. There was nothing we could do, nothing the matron could do, she was beyond healing now. I silently wept by her side, ignoring when Godric shadowed every once and awhile until he dragged me from the room. I hadn’t known he had known, but I am grateful that he never said anything to Rowena or Helga about our rather large tryst; I had been seeing her romantically since her fifth year. I did not wish for lectures, especially then. 

After a little chat with Godric and a school wide memorial, I slowly became distant, changed, secluding myself in my dungeon to study anything I could get my hands on that might tell me how I could fix this; this wasn’t what was supposed to happen. 

We were supposed to marry after her graduation, we were supposed to share children. I loved her, I don’t think that will ever change no matter who I may marry and bare children with in the future; as this I must do, to further my name. 

As time passed I became transfixed with my research, I stopped teaching Potions, kept myself to the dungeons, avoiding my friends and students. It was frustration and aggravation and my lack of success and then, and then I found it. 

The solution, the solution to give her a new life. 

It would take a lot of power, a lot more study and some rather obscure ingredients for the elixir but she could continue her life, as Hogwarts. The soul of Hogwarts. She could protect all those she wished to protect, continue study here and wander the halls with her friends; perhaps, not as she once was, but she would still be here, she would still be with me. 

Unfortunately as my friends learnt of what I had done to her, not approving of taking away her freedom, her peace, I became angry and upset, accusing them of not caring as much as they showed as it had come to this, they had not protected her from death, they had not seen this coming, they had not done anything to prevent something like this from happening; she had been Muggleborn, she had lived in a Muggle Village, a village that had decided they were houses witches. 

‘What?’ Harry breathed, blinking. 

But this was good. I had said. They could leave Hogwarts in capable hands when they decided to leave it to further their own futures and families, when they were no longer young enough to teach themselves and stay within Hogwarts. She would protect it. 

Alas, as some time passed I grew to regret what I had done as she hovered before me in my room. Staring at me mournfully, blinking watery silver eyes. It had taken time for her to fully animate again, for the soul to attach to the castle. But now, I had the words of my friends in my head. ‘What have you done Sal?’ ‘She wouldn’t have wanted this.’ ‘Let her rest and be with her family.’ But I couldn’t reverse it, there was no way to reverse it. I had trapped her soul, forever. 

What did she think of me now? I wondered. 

I wept angrily at what I had done and thrust that anger out of my friends. I grew to believe that it was better if the school no longer took in Muggleborn’s as it was far too dangerous. They could endanger the lives of their classmates, they could endanger themselves with accidental magic. The Witch Trials of the Muggle’s had only just begun. 

It weighed heavily on our friendship; it crackled and fizzled and it was the fight that I had with my best friend Godric that drove me to throw up my hands and leave the school in their angered and disbelieving hands. They did not believe that this was best for all, that it was best for the wizarding world. Only bad things happened when wizards and witches mingled with the Muggle’s, it wasn’t any better when those Muggle’s had magic in their possession. 

I left the school, not wanting to feel the pain anymore, not wanting to feel the guilt that poured into me as I stared at her wandering around mournfully. I could have stopped this, I could have stopped her from going home to something so horrible that awaited her future. She had asked to stay with me, I should have let her. 

Because I felt this guilt, because I had left on bad terms, I placed her in an animated sleep. It was strong, so I do not know if she will ever wake to protect the school as I had programmed into her new life. 

She will forever be my Helena.

Harry blinked through the many pages this long winded passage had taken up. ‘She will forever be my Helena.’ Those few words were strongly inked and he could have sworn there were dark wet stains of tears on them as they were blurred to some degree. He sat up straight, his feet falling back to the floor. ‘Helena!?’ He called. 

‘Yes?’ She said quietly, appearing in the mist. 

‘You…You were Slytherin’s Fiancée? You were his student? You died and he affixed your body and soul to Hogwarts in his hopefully vein and selfish attempt to bring you back? You are, really Hogwarts?’ His voice grew steadily. 

She went rigid as she had before but she nodded and quietly spoke, ‘Yes.’ 

‘You, are Helena Majik, though I don’t believe Majik was your maiden name when you were a living human being and a Hogwarts Sixth Year engaged to your Professor. You were killed in a Witch Trial that took place in your village during some holiday, and your body and soul were turned into the Soul of Hogwarts, this why the school is proclaimed sentient by everyone inside it?’ She was nodding. 

‘Helena, exactly how can I and have impregnate something, sorry, someone that is essentially a type of Ghost?’ He queried, his facial expression pained because he still didn’t understand how THAT was possible. 

‘I don’t know.’ She lifted a shoulder, staring at him. ‘You look as if you still don’t quite understand something, Harry.’ 

‘I don’t understand any of this actually.’ He laughed, but it wasn’t humorous. ‘I think I’ll read a bit more, do you mind if I take some of these books up to the rooms I was going to nick for the next three nights?’ 

‘You are more than welcome to stay in here.’ She waved around. 

Harry blinked. ‘Oh.’ He stared around, paused at the rumpled bed and then sighed. ‘Alright, as long as you show me the way back out when I’ve had enough reading tonight?’ she nodded, smiling. 

The raven read about Helena as a student, in the eyes of her lover Salazar Slytherin and in Godric’s over the next three days. It kept him busy and he had even disregarded the time on the second day, completely missing attend that night’s hateful speeches; this was no great loss to him but his friends did frown at him when he saw them the next day—he had to say he had been to hungover, accidently drinking more than he realised and had slept through it. 

Between Salazar and Godric, their feelings of protection and love for Helena were entirely different. Though it was clear that Godric Gryffindor loved the student Helena, he was not in love with one of his students. 

He skimmed through quite a few other journals in those three days and grabbed at one that appeared to describe how Salazar had found out the specifics of the horrendous execution of his lover and those in her Muggle village. The man spoke of hunting down the ones responsible for giving the tip to the Muggle hunting party. 

It had been orchestrated. 

“I wanted to kill him. I could feel my magic trying to burst out of my body as I stool before him enraged; his features were calm, unconcerned, unrepentant of any ill that he had caused with what he had done. To do such a thing was a crime in and of itself, magic was magic whether they were of “pure” blood or otherwise, like Helena had been. You were all the same kin, all of the same race, you all practised magic; no one in our world is entirely “pure”. It’s a load of rubbish and any who believe in it are delusional and mad. It was simply outrageous. 

I stood before him, my hands clenched painfully, my fingers digging crescents into my palms and drawing blood as I tried to keep myself calm enough to question one of our students; one of mine. He was a seventh year Slytherin. It made me sick. I wanted to strangle him then and there, right on the spot. 

I stared hard down at his unconcerned face and hissed. ‘Do you understand what you have done? Do you understand how you have just condemned hundreds, slaughtered innocents because of what you did?’ The student sat there, his arms stretched across the back of his chair awkwardly but he must have been comfortable for he did not move and merely smirked at me. 

The audacity!! 

“Maybe you should put more stock in your own blood sir. Maybe you shouldn’t have been sleeping around and bedding Mudblood’s.” He had said these words to me and I lunged right for him. I had my hands wrapped around his throat and squeezing with all my might, delighting as I saw the life flickering in his eyes as he choked when the door slammed open behind me and hands were grasping at me, dragging me back from a sputtering seventh year that disgusted me. 

It was one of those moments that the other founders found despicable and helped them decide that I was no longer fit to teach at Hogwarts, that forced me to leave.”

Harry was enraptured by the words transcribed on the vanilla parchment, inked as they were in glistening dark viridian ink. This man, this man that in history, in the legends of the Four Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was described as hating muggles and muggleborn’s, that had supposedly put a lot of stock in being of “pure blood” had in fact almost killed one of his students because that student had purposefully, and in-advertently gotten Slytherin’s Muggleborn Fiancée killed before she could even so much as start her Seventh Year. Salazar, apparently really wasn’t as bad as the legends say he was. 

Slipping from the leather sofa and padding silently to the large bookcases on the last day of the mourning, the raven selected a number of texts that were preserved on the shelves, like the one that he had first seen on Magical Cores and slipped them, looking around, when he realised he would need something to carry books if he were to take them, into a rucksack that lay beneath the wooden study desk in the other corner of the room; he had had to carefully clean the insides as it was filled with a thousand odd years-worth of dust and repair the rustled over buckles but it took the books with ease seemingly charmed with an extension charm. 

He hoped it was alright if he took them. He stood before the door, bag strap thrown over his shoulder, hand on the doorhandle and the side of the case and stared back into the room he had used for a few days. It had been interesting, and strange. He wondered if Helena would come and say goodbye or tried to stop him removing the tomes, but she didn’t as he turned the knob and made his way out of the maze and into the un-secretive halls of Hogwarts. 

He spent a few hours still within the walls, spending time with his friends who would be staying an extra two days to help with last minute clean-ups and assignments of staff; apparently Hermione was going to be teaching Muggle Studies and Ancient Runes, and to say his last goodbyes at the memorial plaque. 

Then he was gone, Helena still never showed up before he left. 

[ ][ ][ ]

Six months later. 

The raven, after saying his goodbyes to his friends and making promises that he would in fact make sure he fire-called them from time to time, he had busied himself in a span of the next few days with amending the trials of innocents and finding a place he could go, as he had not really looked. This, turned out to be Freiburg. The Black Forest of Germany in a somewhat quant two-story picturesque cottage; it was white with beams of native wood from the black forest. The door was the same dark coloured wood as the beams and concealed the entrance to his house at 12 Ft. The grounds were beautiful green, back and front with outer edges of blooming flower trees and berry bushes, the perimeter boarded with a fence of the same dark wood that came to an arch covered in moss and vines of lilies (they had already been there) and an iron gate that locked out strangers just as much as his wards that he was careful, very careful to concentrate on as he erected them, his arms shaking madly. 

He was grateful to find a small wizarding village not far from the university that he had decided to attend; why not right? He was in his first year of Albert Ludwig University; a Muggle University, in the “Forest, Environment and Earth Sciences”, was taking night classes at ALPADIA Language School for German, obviously, and had recently started and spectacularly graduated from Culinary School; majoring in pastries and baking and thus had decided to, making things more busy, invest himself in opening up a Café and Bar, which he then decided to name “Spirit of the Moon”; it opened at 6 am to 5pm for the Café hours and switched over to the Bar from 6pm to 12 am. 

Juggling all of this, coupled with his training and mediating at his Master’s house (For his Magic; it hadn’t been easy for the someone to help), was tough but he did it somehow and it became easier when he decided that he needed more staff, people that were flexible to changing hours and extended shifts to oversee the café and bar when he simply couldn’t be there himself. He had brought in someone he trusted, a second in command, and this happened to be his patisserie buddy, who was still learning, Kaji Rei. 

As it did happen, the both of them were currently standing before the black wood door with the glass pane of the Café. It was wide open as their eyes steadily grew wide, staring as they were down at the small doorstep. Customers were peering around them and trying to sneak a peek from their tables, forgetting their breakfasts; it was early. 

‘Uh.’ Harry couldn’t help the gurgle that left his throat. Before his scarlet trainers lay four wicker baskets full of wriggling infants covered in soft warm fluffy blankets. He wiped the sweat from his palms onto his black apron around his midsection as his body involuntarily jerked from Kaji’s hand falling atop his shoulder; his voice penetrated Harry’s muffling eardrums in a sort of echo. 

‘Boss? Uh, are these yours by any chance?’ He pointed over Harry’s shoulder with his other hand as Harry turned his head slowly, green eyes staring unblinking behind his golden frames and messy black forelocks. 

‘UH, I think…so…’ He mumbled the words, his lips barely parting as his head turned back to the baskets and their wriggling babies. Four, wriggling babies. He swallowed. He took a good look at them as Kaji leaned on him. Each one was pale, almost as if they were carved from unmarked marble or porcelain, two of them had pointed ears poking out of a full head of hair, though their locks were different. None of them really looked all that similar to each other, which was strange; you would think that at least a pair would be identical or something? 

He stared from left to right. 

The first basket had what appeared to be a boy wrapped in a blue blanket trimmed with gold and stitched with “Baby Boy”, his hair that full mess, but this one ashen and apparently brilliant large golden eyes with a liberal ring of shining silver. 

The baby next to him appeared to be a little girl, so said the white blanket trimmed with gold that covered her from any cold air. Her full head of mess was, oh (He almost hit himself), there were two that looked similar, her locks were white and her iris silver, her liberal ring dark grey. 

The middle baby also appeared to be another boy. The blanket that proclaimed his gender was a soft blue trimmed with silver; Harry blinked at this baby’s hair beneath a warm beanie that was slipping off, barely hanging onto his head as he wriggled in his basket; it was black but the short wisps were ashen tipped. His face screwing up as Harry peered at him, seeing that his eyes were in fact Harry’s emerald green for a split second, Harry blinked again, the liberal ring was a shining silver just as the first babe. He peered a little closer, thinking that something was on this baby’s cheek but he appeared to have to freckles just beneath his right eye which Harry had a fleeting thought was rather cute before next peering at the last baby. 

This baby was another little girl in an emerald blanket trimmed with silver, her hair was raven brown and her iris a jade that rimmed and then spread with gold. Harry swallowed as they stared intently up at his rapidly paling features; he had almost forgotten. 

‘Yes.’ He whispered, ‘Um, I’ll just um, backroom, would you?’ He waved his arm around helplessly in a vain attempt to get the message across without intelligent speech, reaching down to grab two of the wicker baskets from the stone step.

‘Sure thing, Harry.’ Kaji said, forgoing his usual “Boss” and picking two of them up himself. ‘But who’d you sleep with exactly? Didn’t you tell me that you were 100% Gay in culinary school?’ Harry didn’t miss the accusation in the tone as they made their way around the breakfast goers to the backroom. This might have been because they had had a bit of stint together before realising they were better off friends and work associates. 

The café was a maze of chairs and tables, staring curious eyes and gaping mouths from their regulars as the door shut to the backroom behind them. Setting them down before speaking, on the crimson coloured plush couch of the breakroom/backroom he then turned and stared at Kaji. ‘I am, I definitely am but, before I came here, there was night…Just one night, at this…thing that I really didn’t want to attend, that supplied alcohol…’ He wasn’t sure why he was trying to justify himself. ‘She supplied some too…’ 

An understanding look passed over his friend’s face. ‘Ah, you were drunk.’ He pointed, speaking plainly. 

Harry nodded. ‘Yeah, more or less.’ He felt ashamed to say that he had been but even more ashamed that he had been so manipulated and frankly taken advantage of by someone that wasn’t even human. Though, he never mentioned those to Kaji. 

‘Must have been some pretty woman then, to change your views for a night, even shit faced drunk?’ He queried, eyebrow raised in bemusement and still a bit of accusation. Harry said nothing, staring now at the tips of his trainers. ‘You know, uh, they do seem a bit, um, odd, though…If you don’t mind my mentioning, Boss.’ 

Harry blinked up and Kaji pointed as he went on. ‘Two of them have pointed ears, the ones with the similar white hair…The middle babe there, he has white tipped hair and all their eye colours seem a bit unusual.’ Well, Harry supposed he couldn’t very well deny that. Nor, he supposed could he really mention that their Mother was in fact nothing more or less than a Soul, true with a body that had once been true and alive, but a Ghostly Soul none the less, nor could he, he thought, mention that he didn’t believe he was exactly human anymore either; he had in fact, discovered a memory during his mediations of when he had gotten all his unstable magic. 

Not that he thought Kaji would think much of it. The man wasn’t human himself. In fact, half of Harry’s staff weren’t human and neither were his clienteles. But he still didn’t think he wished to mention this until he was sure of it. The black haired man did know about the unstable magic however, so, with a mumble Harry asked if he could conjure some pacifier’s. 

‘Sure. You know, they look at least a month old, I wonder why their mother sent them all to you so suddenly?’ 

As the pacifiers were taken hungrily by the babes, apparently eager for something else that Harry asked Kaji to take care of as well, if he could, Harry’s mind wandered briefly back to the memory that had surfaced during one of his meditative sessions with his Master. Then again, perhaps it had been something of a vision of the past, as Harry was sure he had never been to China and he was not in fact the boy in the memory… 

He had trudged away from the crumbled dead body of a mortal Tom Riddle, away from staring eyes full of relief and thanks and had found a secluded spot to fall to his own knees, body weak, magical core depleted and pulsing with every last dreg of magic left. It was as his head fell forward against the cool cracked stone beneath him that he felt his insides lurch and begin to burn. His whole body alighted, it had seemed, into a burning inferno of flesh and bone—he had wondered whether it was not as he had thought and they were both to die here tonight, neither surviving. 

But the past zoomed up on him; he hadn’t known this at the time of course but he watched from behind aching closed eyelids as scenes sped passed him in nothing but blurs of shapes and colours. His mind focused on the fear steadily creeping up on him and the pain that coursed unrepentantly through his body. He felt sure he had screamed as his body slammed hard onto the stone and his mind slipped into the past. 

It travelled to a dark cavern, with the only light coming from that of a pulsing plant swaying eerily on the edge of thin stream rippling in the cracked black earth of the cavern floor. This light was tinged green and only seemed to really illuminate a small span around it, alighting Harry’s eyes to a small figure bundled in an ashen blanket, wedged between two rather large and chipped black stones; it seemed they were volcanic in nature but this wasn’t something he was concerned with as his body had moved through the cavern, as if it had been physically there. 

He stared down at a mere babe, further illuminated by what appeared to be an orange glow beneath the surface; it struggled within its confines of blanket. 

He had thought at the time, ‘Who would leave an infant in such a place?’ There was no sunlight within the cavern, no fresh air for it smelled horribly like ash. It was cavern within a mountain, Harry knew that much but he had not known where at the time. It wasn’t long before he found himself shocked with the vision to see the babe had become a small child who was now fishing in the small stream, which had become somewhat larger and span at least a meter wide in width now. Apparently, a volcanic cavern housed fish of some sort, whether they were supposed to be eaten he wasn’t sure but it appeared this babe had not been human for right there, on the naked back were large black wings, the ends ashen as if they had been dragged through grey ash; the tips were trailing behind the child and swaying in the stream. 

The child was lithe and agile for someone that had obviously never left. The child, the male child, for he turned and Harry saw, as the boy appeared to not be wearing any clothes whatsoever, that he had caught many fish already. He had obviously been abandoned here to be forgotten, why though? He had kept watching the boy as he puttered around the interior of the cavern, his coal coloured hair, pale features, pointed ears and emerald eyes being illuminated by a small crack that appeared in the ceiling at some point of the last…5 years? That let in some moonlight. 

Harry’s eyes had widened upon seeing all of this and registering it. He silently watched and followed the boy as he went around the cave, feeding himself, exercising, attending to small creatures that wandered in somehow and kept watching until he knew that the boy was in fact raising himself, there, in the volcanic cavern; he watched the boy grow, watched him suddenly start and start hissing, his large wings coming up and over to protect him from two intruders carrying large backpacks. 

Tourists? 

They were shocked, of course, at seeing the boy but didn’t appear to want to harm him. They spoke but it didn’t appear that the young boy understood them, until, of course, they tried again with a little more effort, realising. To Harry, it appeared they were in fact speaking Chinese. He kept watching and saw that the young boy had gone with them. They raised him, took him in until he was Seventeen; apparently. 

They had given him a name; this name was Lumina Han—Their last name was Han. The teen took to travelling the world, learning new things, concealing himself from humans until he met a beautiful woman that was caring and nice and found him fascinating but not alarming. 

This happened to be an ancestor of Harry’s. An ancestor of Lily Evans nee Potter. 

Harry sighed and scrubbed at his face as he was shaken, ‘You alright?’ It was Kaji. Harry nodded silently, his emerald eyes unfocused. He was still trying to figure all that out, along with how to keep his magical core stable with the way it was, keeping his business running smoothly whilst going to University and keeping his magic secret from Muggle’s that were constantly around him, which including new friends, and now, he had to try and deal with FOUR newborn babies. How the FUCK was he going to do that singlehandedly? ‘Do you need a Scotch or something?’ Harry blinked, Kaji looked down so Harry’s eyes followed; his hands were shaking and his body, once he realised, seemed to be vibrating of its on accord. 

‘No, I’m…’ He was going to say fine but then shook his head, ‘Yeah. Yeah, I need something strong to make this all seem doable. Thanks.’ He smacked his palm to his friend’s shoulder and the man nodded. Exactly what did a mysterious creature that housed a lot of magical power within and a very angelic apparition, a host for a sentient school for magical children running with hormones produce? 

‘Sit down Boss, I’ll sort this out.’ He pointed toward the babes as he returned and flicked his hand in an intricate series of patterns. One by one, a bottle found a mouth and a mouth found a teat to suckle. ‘You just drink that.’ 

‘Hm.’ It seemed to occur to him in a split second. ‘Do they have names?’ He asked of no one because clearly his staff member and friend wouldn’t know that. 

Kaji blinked and shrugged. He was about to open his mouth to say something when a flash of blinding light illuminated the breakroom. Upon opening searing irises, Harry and Kaji blinked at what appeared to be a crumpled up letter. ‘Uh, maybe that explains something…Or everything?’ He pointed. ‘Should I leave you to it?’ 

‘Um, yeah, thank you Kaji.’ 

‘No problem.’ He shrugged, his magic remaining as he walked back into the café. 

Harry stood, grasping the letter from where it hovered in the centre of the room then sat himself back down with his glass. Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose he stared down at the words scribbled upon the paper. He believed they were from Helena.

Dear Harry, 

I hope this letter reaches you and that the House Elf that I asked to find you in fact did and that our children are now safely with their Father. The Elf has not returned. I must apologise for not saying any goodbyes to you but you did not seem in a very good mood from the beginning and I’m sure it was a lot to take in, meeting me. 

It took nine months and 3 days to deliver those precious little cherubs. Unfortunately, as there was no way I was going to deliver on my lonesome, I needed help; I invested in the help of the Matron, Madam Pomfrey. Alas, she was quite intrigued to find a young woman in a nightgown ready to give birth in her infirmary and remained this way when our children were born, as they most clearly are not human; and neither am I. 

She kept them within their incubators and I received the 411 from your Headmistress and her Deputy. They seemed quite…Strange in their questioning. I kept quiet and when it had gone on long enough, that I was confined, watched, I asked a trusted house elf to take our three month old’s to you. 

I did not name them, I give that to you. Three were born on the 7th and the youngest was born on the 8th of February. The ashen haired son is our eldest. The snow haired daughter is our eldest; they were minutes apart. The raven haired daughter is our youngest and was 20 minutes apart. The jet black and ashen haired son is our youngest and was born on the 8th, just after midnight. 

Keep them safe, protect them, raise them, love them. 

Yours,   
Helena. 

Harry breathed as he read and walked toward the baskets and the feeding babes. Staring down at them and their opened eyes; they stared back. The jet black and ivory haired infant threw out a leg from his blanket and a fist into the air. Harry blinked and couldn’t help the chuckle as one by one, they did something for him to acknowledge. 

Well, he might has well start from youngest to eldest. 

Since he had to name them; 

Zhen Ai Potter.   
He could use his last name, right?   
His youngest giggled.   
Nara Li Potter.   
She gurgled.   
Lunar Lily Potter.   
She smiled cheekily.   
Eres James Potter.   
He farted. 

Harry snorted. As soon as he had finished pronouncing their names Helena’s letter glowed golden and vanished. Another replaced it within his hand, this one had a seal at the very top left hand corner; British Ministry of Magic. He blinked. ‘Oh’. Then another appeared, shivering with magic. In the very top right hand corner was written; German Ministry of Magic. He stared at this one. ‘Yeah, I suppose that makes sense.’ He nodded. 

This however made him think as they shivered together, his eyes reading, they quickly scanned the words as they morphed and changed on the parchments now both within his hands. He sat himself down on the coffee table as he had to wonder, reading these, if anyone was going to want his children-school-wise. It said they weren’t human, rather, it believed, the magic, that his children were “Unknown.” He didn’t think that was good. Before he could think to burn them and hide his children, raising them entirely himself, schooling them himself, they shook and the magic within the paper crackled, causing them to burst into golden sparks and simply vanish. 

He stared blankly a moment at the empty space where they had been. 

‘Well, shit.’ He cursed, draining the last of his scotch. 

[ ][ ][ ]

Before he could even see it, five years had gone passed. 

‘Zhen!!’ 

There was a scurrying from upstairs. 

‘Zhen!!’ He yelled once more, tapping his bandaged fingertips on the railing of the staircase, his bare feet tapping on the hardwood floor. ‘Zhen Ai Potter, get down here!’

Another scurry transpired before an ashen tipped head appeared around the stair, staring with his emerald orbs down at Harry below. ‘Papa?’ He enquired with his soft childish voice; he was only five. His voice was so beautiful to hear, it almost made Harry forget what he was mad at, considering he may not have ever heard it but he pointed before him with a finger bandaged and his head angled downwards. 

The feet padded down with socks similar to his oddly coloured hair. ‘Papa?’ He said again questioningly, his fingers now dug into his grey rabbit eared hooded jacket. Harry was so happy his friends, from University, had bought this for him on his birthday. Harry’s best friend knew nothing of the quadruplets; he had conveniently cut short any conversations he had when the four children were home, when they weren’t he conveniently forgot to mention it. 

‘How many times, must I tell you to play fair with your brother and sisters? You are not to use those Shadows of yours to trick your siblings and to cheat your way out of being found at all, if you don’t want to play hide ‘n’ seek then tell them so, you know the shadows scare your sisters and your brother pouts when he’s left still trying to find you.’ He aimed a finger toward Eres, who was hidden behind the archway to the kitchen, who did indeed have a large pout on his features as he had been searching for the last hour for his younger brother with obviously no success. The two were quite close; but it was in fact only because their sisters had said something that Harry was even standing before the five year old at all. ‘So, what do you say?’ 

The emerald moved from Harry’s to his older brother’s and then his sister’s who peaked from behind Eres shoulder. ‘Sorry.’ He gripped his jacket’s hem tighter as he apologised quietly, his shadow quivering on the wood of the staircase beneath his small feet; it appeared as though the shadow were bowing in apology. 

It was Shadow Magic; Slytherin had had some pretty obscure dark arts texts. He was grateful he’d thought to rummage and nick some of them, and that Helena hadn’t appeared to reprimand him when he had—let alone in the letter she had sent. This act was the only thing that allowed him to even minutely deal with his children’s strange magic. Because it was strange magic. 

Zhen could control Shadows. 

Their magic was elemental, to an extent, and strong. It was old magic. Very old magic.

Fire. This was Lunar’s core. He had figured this out the moment she started setting everything she could get her small hands on, on intense, inextinguishable, rapid fire. She seemed to love watching the way the flames flickered. This unfortunately had Harry apologising profusely to the portrait (which he had freed from a darkened vault when he’d turned 18 and had been gifted a letter by the Goblins at Gringotts) of his Paternal Grandfather, twice, for she loved setting the left hand corner of his golden gilded frame alight. He had also had to find a rather hard to find spell that would extinguish the flames rather quickly; he was once again glad that he had taken Slytherin’s obscure books from his study. 

Earth. This was Nara’s core. She had been the first to become proficient enough to halfway control her core that the forest that now overran their backyard was not so overgrown and you could now wind your way through it on a pebbled pathway to a small overhang of fronds that shaded a large mushroom wood table and seats. The quads were often playing within, he had found her lost the first time she had grown this at two years of age; she had grown it around her whilst outside being babysat with her brothers and sister, by Harry’s friends; he had returned to find them panicky and running around like headless chooks trying to find her—he had located her with his instincts and concentration of his magic. 

He actually believed that fairies and sprites now lived here, as well some fish (however they had gotten there) in a small stream that ran close by the shrubbery encased fence. 

Air. And this was Eres’ core. He could manipulate the wind and the atmospheric pressure around them that he was able to tell it what to do. Harry had once found him floating right up at the ceiling, putting his feet all over the interior roof. This was the easiest magic to control for Harry, because Eres was just as proficient as Nara was and he was good boy, a responsible little boy. 

The books, thank god, described the odd magic right down to the last minute details. Right even to what colour their magical cores happened to be and how he or rather his own Master could help them control their magic, especially their accidental, when it was. It hadn’t been accidental for very long, and so Harry had took them to his Master and explained to some extent about their strange magic, leaving out of course that he had bed someone that wasn’t even human and impregnated her. Harry took them to “lessons” three times a week since they were three. 

Harry couldn’t help but remember Helena’s letter five years explaining that the quads weren’t human, of course, and that there was a reason why they were so powerful, so different magic-wise; with each passing day, he worried about sending them to childcare as they weren’t human and they were different; they passed as human, if you didn’t see the ears. There was nothing wrong with this, in a magical community that didn’t mind creatures but this wasn’t very often and only few cared for the café/bar that Harry owned that allowed such beings without criticism and disapproval. 

‘Good, now please, play nice.’ He gave his youngest a hand coming off the stair and pushed all of them toward the playroom down the hall. He, walked back toward the kitchen himself and stopped the coffee mug to his lips when the doorbell rang. It continued to ring and unconsciously slammed his mug down on the marbled surface of his kitchen countertop; it rattled as he rushed from the kitchen to the stop the incessant noise. It was annoying, and irritating and so when he got to the door he was grouching his words toward the heavy wood. ‘Hold onto your fingers, you might not have them in a minute, if you don’t stop now that is.’ Then he halted, his wand coming out of his jacket. His friends always came through the Floo Network or they knocked, and no one else could get beyond his gates, as far as he knew. 

‘Who is it?’ He gripped the wand tight, his eye pressed to the spyhole. 

‘The Boogie Man, woooo!!’ Fingers invaded the spyhole and he rolled his eyes with a huff, opening the door to his friends’, knowing it was them immediately. ‘Why so edgy man? We just wanted to see what the doorbell sounded like; I hate it.’ His brown eyebrows drew down in annoyance as he growled. 

‘As do I, so why, did you keep pressing it?’ Harry stared despairingly. 

‘I didn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘He did.’ He pointed behind to a blonde haired man taller. 

‘Why?’ Harry lowered his lashes and turned his despairing glare on him, wand pointed. 

The blonde shrugged unconcernedly, blue eyes glistening in bemusement. ‘Knew it would annoy you, I suppose.’ He snickered at Harry’s stare turned proper glare. 

‘I have such wonderful loving friends.’ The raven rolled his eyes along with his sigh of mock despair as he opened the door wider to let them in. ‘Why are you all he—’ He got no further as something very fast zoomed past him. He spun, wand raised though the “something” had already vanished into his house. ‘What, what the hell was that?’ He queried, taking a step back, his body turning inwards. 

‘Ah, that fast blighter would be Lushia.’ 

‘What?’ Harry blinked, still staring after the blur that had long since vanished. ‘What the hell is a Lushia?’ He turned momentarily as the words registered. 

‘Not a what, my good friend, but a who.’ This was Kaji. ‘He’s a child. Bee’s to be exact.’ He pointed to the blonde who nodded his agreement. ‘He’s got his brat for the holidays apparently. Didn’t we mention that? Idiot found out he’d gotten some girl pregnant and they’ve recently gone to court for it, so, now he has the brat for holidays and whatever. Pretty sure, at least I think…’ He turned to Bee momentarily, eyes lowered as if reading thoughts that weren’t projected. Bee twitched and narrowed his own. ‘The same age as the Quads you got in there. Should you not be watching them in that playroom of theirs?’ His face morphed as he blinked into the house. 

‘Huh?’ Harry questioned. 

‘Zhen’s using his shadows again.’ He pointed over Harry’s shoulder as he hesitated momentarily and then took a step within. He was always hesitant. 

‘You’re always welcome here, you know that.’ Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head. Then spun on the spot, his voice projecting. ‘Zhen Ai Potter!! What did I just say to you at the foot of the stairs?!’ There was a squeak and momentary scuttling and then the small boy appeared, the remnants of a harmless shadow projection spell disappearing in wisps around his sons hands as he quickly pocketed them, trying to look innocent. Harry stared pointedly. 

‘No…Shadows?’ He questioned. 

‘Hm.’ 

‘Not even puppet?’ He questioned. 

Harry stared, eyes affixed on the emerald that mirrored his own almost completely. He was about to sway his words to be more lenient when four other children emerged into the hallway. One of them blonde haired and blue eyed and tanned. ‘AH, you must be the blur I saw disappearing into my house. Know how to find your way to new friends don’t you? Mighty energetic.’ 

‘You would not believe, but he is a good boy. I’m actually scared he’s got more energy then all of yours combined.’ 

Harry’s eyebrow rose as he leaned around Lacy (the only girl in their tight knit group) and closed the door soundly. ‘Uh, which ones are you assuming have any energy?’ He kept speaking as he ushered them toward the kitchen. The children had vanished. ‘Lu is practically glued to the Library, against my best reservations that it’s a fundamentally bad idea to have her around any flammables, like paper.’ 

‘Eres sits himself in front of the tv I am starting to wish I had never installed and flicks through all the channels about a hundreds times a second, rarely ever moving; I’m surprised he sees anything for more than a second and learns anything from the educational channels—which I’ve noticed he actually does.’ He took a breath and scrubbed the side of his head, not even looking within the kitchen, ‘Nara is always outside in her forest. I’m not sure I even have the slightest clue what she does in there most of the day but at least she comes out of it safe and sound, so that’s a plus.’ 

‘And my baby, Zhen is…’ He turned at a rustle and blinked, ‘is in my pantry.’ He blinked again and lowered his voice, his hands on his hips as the bottom slowly receded and the body turned to face them all, the face sheepish with a muesli bar between small pointed teeth. He’d been under the assumption they had all run back to the playroom when they didn’t appear to be in trouble of any kind, well, Zhen anyway. 

‘Papa.’ He said, the word muffled around the plastic wrapper. 

‘Surely you are not that hungry, we only had lunch an hour ago.’ He breathed as he saw the lowered gaze and grabbed at the wrapped package between the teeth. He stared at the marks in the plastic with intensity afterwards; he’d seen this a few times, since Zhen had starting teething, but only a few times; the teeth weren’t always sharp. ‘Fine, go on then.’ He handed it back reluctantly. ‘I can’t put it back now, but don’t let me catch you getting out food again, and I will know Zhenny, wait until dinnertime, am I understood?’ Harry shook the plastic as his son’s smiling face beamed up at him, snagging the item with small hands and practically zooming out of the kitchen, his shadow jumping delightedly behind him all the way. 

‘Yes Papa!!’ He yelled as he reached the end of the hallway, stopping before the playroom archway. Harry nodded at the smaller figure, following him to the kitchen doorway. 

‘Well…’ Said Bee. ‘I suppose I meant that one. He’s seems energetic?’ 

Harry stared. 

‘Yeah, definitely that one. He seems like he’s the one that leads them, he must have all the energy, he practically flew out of the kitchen and somehow diverted our attention when they all disappeared that he came in here instead for food?’ ‘I wonder what Lushia thinks of him?’ 

‘You know…’ Harry started. ‘You should probably teach your son not to enter stranger’s houses, rather, run into them, especially this one.’ He waved around to encompass the general area, meaning the house specifically as he walked to the stove and drew the kettle over to the wooden table.

‘Hm, fair point.’ He did shrug though, just once as he stared. 

‘You would actually be surprised I think to find that Zhen has the least amount of energy of the four of them. He gets his shadow to do a lot of things for him, and I’ve no idea how that’s really possible but there you go…’ He tipped his head sideways momentarily. ‘I do find that he does eat the most out of them though, he’s constantly hungry. I’ve had a talk with Master about his magic perhaps draining him, you know when he uses it, but he doesn’t think so; he just said Zhen was a growing boy—which obviously he is…’ He waved airily as he poured into mugs he summoned from the cupboard. ‘If I were going to pick one, I suppose I’d pick, maybe, Lunar? She summons books from up high, and reads about 20 of them in one day…Wait, no, Nara maybe? She’s always doing something in the forest garden of hers, I don’t think she simply sits there all day.’ 

He stood back, took a look at the table and summoned sandwiches from the fridge that he had packed away from their earlier lunch; leftovers. ‘Help yourselves.’ 

‘SO, why are you all here again, sitting around my kitchen table, sipping tea and eating jam sandwiches that Zhen refused to eat at lunchtime?’ He asked this casually as he settled himself down in his chair. 

‘We wanted to hangout.’ They all said as one, shrugging in sync. 

‘Ah huh’ he said, inclining his head once in dubious acceptance. Not that he really had a problem with this being the reason his University friends, language school, work and prior culinary school friends were here in his house. The fact that Harry hadn’t obviously been in the know about one of his friends having a child the same age as his own was annoying but it was great at the same time; they had a friend. 

They sat speaking for ages about various stupid shit and Harry was just wheezing into the tabletop with the rest of the group, because of something Luka said (he didn’t find it the least bit funny and had spoken in aggravation) when a small shaky voice penetrated the kitchen. ‘Papa?’ this caused Harry’s head to rise and his laughter to immediately die. Everyone else’s head rose as he quickly wiped tears of laughter from the corner of his eyes and stared a perspiring and flush faced five year old. 

He blinked. ‘Zhenny?’ the small hands were shaking and the voice trembled as he said Harry’s title again, trying unsuccessfully to extricate himself from an equally distraught Lushia from his sweaty jumper. Harry was confused, ‘Zhen?’ and so it came across. 

‘Stuck. Stuck, why is he stuck?!’ The soft voice grew higher and higher in pitch as the small hands pushed and pushed with Zhen’s, trying unsuccessfully un-stick each other. 

‘Stuck?’ Harry questioned. ‘Lushia is stuck to you, for real?’ He knew he sounded stupid asking as he came forward, trying to pry the two apart himself, but it seemed the blonde haired boy only got stuck more; it was if they had used glue. He paused. ‘You haven’t been ransacking daddy’s study, again have you? You haven’t been playing with glue?’ 

Zhen’s head shook vigorously. 

‘Uh…’ Strange. The raven took a moment to stare between the two youngsters seemingly melded together. ‘Hm.’ He frowned fiercely and then grabbed for Zhen. 

‘They looked fused.’ 

Harry glowered as he tried to pull the two apart. ‘Thank you Lacy, for the clearly obvious.’ He did turn to actually send the glower at her and continued to try and pull the two fused boy’s apart. He sighed after a few minutes, ‘Bee, if you wouldn’t mind?’ He questioned, repositioning his hands on his sweating son; it only appeared to be his son who was sweating. The other boy just looked really frightened and confused. 

They tried this for a few minutes but when nothing seemed to change, Harry grunted and both parents drifted apart a moment, staring at their son’s. ‘This isn’t working. I am so confused, why the hell would…’ He did another grunt and moved forward again, tapping a finger to Lushia’s skin where it had turned pink at his neck; it came away normal. ‘Strange…’ He turned his head and stared at Zhen whose body now shook and his chest rose and fell shudderingly. ‘Kaji?’ He questioned. 

‘Yes?’ 

‘This is going to sound very odd but could you please touch my son’s skin.’ 

‘Uh.’ Kaji stared but stood, walking swiftly over and tapped his cold fingers to the clammy skin of Zhen’s cheek; it stuck. He frowned, pulling and with great effort and a whimper from Zhen, it came loose. Harry stepped forward to sooth his troubled son, knelt before him he stared into the scared eyes; the pupil was slitted. 

Harry’s lips fell open, ‘Oh…’ he whispered, eyes widening in surprise as he started to realise what might have just happened; might have. He stared intensely down at his youngest son, stared at the flushed sweating features, the reddening ears that quivered, the erratic uneven breaths, the pained features, the stick. ‘Zhenny, sweet heart, are you in any pain right now that you aren’t mentioning?’ the small shoulders shook and the two-toned crown dropped in one nod, small fingers dropping to a hem. ‘Where’s your shadow?’ He questioned. 

Zhen made a small noise and pressed his hands up to his chest, then to Lushia he pointed; Harry startled. ‘Your shadow is attached to Lushia?’ Zhen nodded. 

‘Uh.’ Well, that didn’t sound good, none of this sounded good. It looked bad. Harry’s eyes flickered and then went around the kitchen, taking in each person that was there and the three other children that peered around the archway for it then hurriedly pulled and pulled until an odd suctioning sound released into the room. His son shook and his breath grew more rigid. Quickly Harry grabbed up his son and threw him onto his hip, his eyes not averting to the small figure here or standing on the wooden floor, or the darkness that tried to reach out. He stamped his way up toward his Master Suite; there he placed his whimpering son and his reaching shadow. 

He could hear crying from downstairs. 

What to do, what to do, what to do… 

He locked the door with a wave of his hand; the door cracked and splintered right down the middle as the out of control, panicky magic enveloped it. He swore but dashed for the on suite and the large sink as his son whimpered again; this time it was in clean pain. When Harry re-emerged carrying a dampened handtowel to pat his son’s forehead, he saw the young boy rocking himself as he curled inwards on the sheets in the centre of the bedspread. There was a definite tear of fabric as a cry wrenched the warming air of Harry’s bedroom. ‘Zhen!’ He shouted as he rushed the last few paces across the room to his youngest son, now curled in on himself; a foetal position. 

Harry’s foot frozen mid-step as his eyes seemed to finally register something important. That ripping of fabric had apparently been both his sons nails tearing at the fabric of the sheets and the jumper and shirt his son wore, as wings burst forth. More to the point, his eyes realised that he was now staring at something he didn’t quite understand. If he hadn’t known better he would have thought he had been duped by his eldest son and child, for now Zhen had ashen hair just like his elder brother. The only discerning characteristic that made Harry sure he hadn’t just been had with a switch-a-roo was the two freckles below Zhen’s right eye.

The boy’s complexion had become ten x paler, his body shone with sweat beneath the clothes and his toes curled inwards as he cried out once more. Harry stared agape at the medium sized wings that were heaped behind his son’s now shifting form; they were grey and ashen; the feathers that floated down from the ceiling as they had sprouted. He came forth carefully and gripped the wet towel tightly as he advanced on the bed, unsure what his son would do if he were startled. Or, what he would do in general rather- even if Harry was his father. 

But Zhen barely moved, whimpering and crying. Harry shifted him onto his lap as he crawled into the middle of his own mattress. He used soothing words, praises and apologies as he smoothed a hand through the now ashen tresses that were completely sopping wet with sweat. ‘Shh, shh, it’s alright, it’s alright Daddy’s here. it’s alright, it’s okay. I’m here, I’m right here. Daddy’s right now with you.’ He kept this up, hoping desperately that it worked to some degree. The shadow of his son seemed to have calmed and was no longer grasping out for anything but was attached firmly to his son. The wings, once they had been out for a while had had their stretches and shudders, they seemed to fold right back into the bare shoulder blades. 

It seemed almost twice as painful for the wings to fold back between the blades. 

The raven felt his son crawl further into his lap that he was entirely on it with his head buried in Harry’s own shoulder, sobbing “Daddy” into the fabric beneath his chin. The small darkened nails were clutched so tightly within fabric that Harry had begun to hear small tearing noises as the nails dug into the stitching. ‘Shh, shh.’ Harry kept stroking and slowly crawled, with his son, from the mattress; avoiding the blood spatters, which he’ll clean thoroughly later, he took his son to the on-suite and the large bath that was almost like a small swimming pool, feeling that this might lower his son’s anxiety and pain. Unfortunately, it took a bit to fill, even with magic; there was a knack for it that Harry hadn’t quite gotten that hang of (even though he’d had the bath from the beginning) but he didn’t mind holding his son. 

Silence fell in the room for long minutes exempting Zhen’s small sobs and the rustle, rustle of the fabric as it was being grasped and realised, grasped and released, then, out of nowhere in particular, ‘Daddy?’ It echoed across the bathroom to the room outside, jerking Harry out of somewhere he had visited as the tub filled with water, bath soaps and bubbles. He stared, bewildered that Zhen had called him “Daddy”. Daddy was shared by Harry’s daughters. Zhen had always called him Papa. Eres had always called him Dada. ‘Ye, yes sweet heart?’ 

The green eyes stared up with tears still flowing and his lip quivering, his body shaking as Harry lowered him into the shallow seat beneath the water; he stripped himself to his underwear and lowered himself in, grasping his son back to his chest. ‘Wha…’ Harry licked his lips as he avoided the eyes of his youngest. He wasn’t a 100% sure himself but he knew that Zhen had just, more than likely inherited what Harry now knew to be “Feathercrest Lumina” which was what Harry’s fucked up ancestry seemed to be from his Mother’s side; he’d found it some three years ago—the name. It wasn’t that Harry hadn’t believed they might receive something of it, but he hadn’t expected them to receive it so early, let alone his youngest first. He wasn’t sure that the “stickiness” was the ancestry though and not something to do with the shadows his son possessed. Nor was he certain that Zhen appeared to be accepted the DNA; it rather looked like his body had been trying to reject it. 

‘Um…Daddy’s genetics are, uh, “coming in”, I think. I’m so sorry sweet heart. I didn’t know it was going to be…” He was going to say so excruciating but then remembered that it had been, incredibly painful. ‘…soon.’ He lowered his head to the still ashen head of wet locks. ‘Is the water alright?’ A small nod. Harry took a breath, feeling immensely guilty and close to tears. He took another breath, more of a sigh really then anything else and drew a bit of magic out to enchant sponges to wash his son in his arms as he had the thought that he would have to re-find Sal’s books in his rearranged library (curtesy of one of his daughters) to find anything about “stickiness” in shadow magic. 

The raven was a bit frightened that he might have to go through this another three times; he had no idea if this genetics would appear in all his children or simply just one. He had seen signs before in Zhen, but beyond pointed ears in all his children, he saw nothing else in the other three. The bath was silent, redressing his son in fresh clothes was silent and carrying him down the stairs some time after, avoiding looking at the feathers that littered his bedroom now, was silent. Everyone was in the kitchen, a child on each lap of an adult, all asking questioning the moment he entered through the doorway cradling his small son; for Zhenny was much smaller than his siblings. 

‘What happened?’ This was Luka. 

‘Is he alright?’ This was Lacy. 

‘Why the hell was he stuck to my son and where on earth did you disappear too?’ Bee. 

Kaji was oddly silent, but his oddly pale eyes stared intently. 

‘What’s wrong with kleiner Bruder *Baby/Little Brother*?’ Harry swallowed upon hearing Eres’ voice softly speak. It was odd to think that the boys were so similar and the girl’s were so similar that they could have passed for separate twins, even though, three were essentially triplets, born on the same day, and the other was born on a different. If Harry knew more about the situation of their birth and stay inside their mother, perhaps he’d really know and not guess but he wasn’t sure this was exactly wrong. 

‘Um…’ Harry sat gently down in the vacated seat of his and stared down at the top and corner of Zhen’s head and face; the tot hadn’t said a word since “What” and “Daddy” ‘Uh’ He said again, unsure really what to say. 

‘Something to do with their genetics perhaps? If I may mention, again, as I had when they appeared suddenly five years ago at the café step early in the morning?’ Eres who was on his life, stared wildly at his silent brother. Zhen was usual talkative, at least, more than the rest of them considering he might not have talked in the first place. 

Harry sighed despondently. ‘Something like that, yes, Kaji.’ 

‘You know we are you friends right, Harry? We know your past. We know why you hid your last name from us for so long. We knew about these four before your best friends did, do, sorry, do, because they don’t know despite us constantly saying you should stop hedging the bush and spit it out. We love you. So, come on, please?’ Lacy. 

He sighed, ‘I don’t hedge.’ He grumbled, they stared. He grumbled again and rocked his five year old once or twice on his lap, hand on his still shivering back. ‘Uh, so, it’s called a Feathercrest Lumina, and no I don’t really understand why and I early found out what it was called some two years ago, hidden within some books I have that are somewhere in my rearranged library.’ He stared a moment at Lunar. ‘It doesn’t have much about it, just the name really and the where it originates from.’ He took in a heaving breath. ‘Coupled with their Mother, who isn’t human, not really, they are not human. I don’t even think they are semi-human.’ He shook his head and then lowered it to the nicely smelling black and ash tip-returned crown at his chest. ‘When I was seventeen I inherited creature blood from my Mother’s side, how I don’t know, she was Muggleborn.’ They were all staring blankly. He swallowed, avoiding the stares. 

‘A travelling couple found my ancestor in a cave in a mountain in China. He was still young, he had been there ever since he was baby. They raised him, named him. I had a vision as this DNA struck me suddenly, bringing me to my knees after the war was finished. I honestly don’t know much about it besides that and now the name and that it was China that he came from, though he wasn’t Chinese by Nationality. He travelled, he found a nice girl to settle down with, they obviously had children and here we are today. The emerald eyes are sign of his genetics, apparently. This Feathercrest Lumina, they have wings, pointed teeth; I’ve seen the teeth but this, Zhenny just sprouted wings upstairs. In regard to the stickiness, I really don’t have any idea. But it is more than likely something to do with his magic.’ 

‘Hold on, hold on, hold on. You aren’t human?’ 

Harry hesitated. ‘Semi-human I think.’ 

‘Their mother isn’t human?’ 

‘Uh, it’s complicated. Even I still don’t understand it and I’ve got books that try to explain it, though not in very good detail as they focused more on…Other things.’ 

‘Right. So, the quads, they aren’t human, you think?’ 

Harry sighed. ‘I know they aren’t; not even remotely.’ ‘My DNA flows through each of them, whether they all get my genetics activated I don’t know. The…DNA of their mother flows through their veins and considering it’s very complicated.’ He shook his head, affirming seemingly to himself. ‘They aren’t human.’ 

‘You can’t tell us what their mother is?’ 

‘She isn’t exactly non-human either; I said it was complicated.’ 

Lacy huffed. ‘Your DNA, what did you say it was called?’ 

‘Feathercrest Lumina.’ Harry stared at her. ‘Why?’ 

Lacy started to frown down at the table top, fingers to her lips as the other hand kept a firm grasp on her coffee cup. ‘What?’ Harry asked. 

‘Hm, I feel like I’ve heard something before…’ 

‘Of what?’ Harry questioned, frown between his brow. 

‘Feathercrest Lumina.’ 

‘Have you?’ His eyebrows did a weird up and down dance. 

‘Mm. Though I can’t remember from exactly where…Har, do your bandages play any part in your condition?’ 

Condition? ‘No.’ Harry shook his black tresses, careful to keep a hold of his youngest son as he slowly stroked soothingly at the slightly damp strands. ‘These merely hide scars from a fierce and bloody battle. I don’t wish to show them, they aren’t pretty.’ 

‘…I do have wings…’ He mumbled. 

One by one, eyes stared at him incredulously. 

‘What do they look like?’ Harry blinked at the over-excited outburst. 

‘Uh?’ 

‘Are they demonic, angelic, Fae?’ This was of course Lacy, whom he had actually nodded at and answered with as much dignity and embarrassment as he could hide. 

‘To be honest, I’m not actually what you would describe them as, what category they would fit into, if in fact the category exists to fit them. They are not Fae though, I can tell you that for certain; they aren’t translucent, they definitely don’t sparkle or anything of that and they aren’t lightly coloured. I stumbled for quite a while before I worked out how to retract them, I wasn’t going to return to the castle with wings. They sweep the ground and tower at least three foot over my head. They are pure black until you reach the very bottom edges then they are ashen; like I’ve dragged the bottom feather’s through ash.’ He kept his gaze on Zhen as he stroked the boys head, his green eyes taking on a troubled look as he clenched his teeth. 

 

 

‘Black as the darkest midnight, the tips ashen as if they’d been dragged through ash and were permanently stained that colour?’ He wasn’t sure if it were a question aimed at him or herself so he remained quiet with everyone else. ‘You said you had a dream when you changed Har, that you thought it was China?’ 

‘Not thought, the people that found him were Chinese, he lived with them until he turned Seventeen then he came to England—that was all I saw.’ 

 

‘Right….right…’ She hummed, tapping her tea cup. ‘Perhaps the reason why you haven’t found anything of value is because there aren’t any books in English? Perhaps they were all written in his birth country? Perhaps they are only found and written in China, Harry. I have relatives there myself, my grandparents obviously as my Mother is Chinese; I could give them a call and see if they know anything about “Feathercress Lumina”, as I’m sure I’ve heard it somewhere…I doubt I would receive nothing and if they have, I’ll ask how and if they have texts, I’ll have them sent to me with haste, and I’ll translate them for you Harry.’ She looked up and smiled, ‘We’ll discover what you are, don’t worry.’ 

‘Right…’ He mumbled. ‘Uh…would it help if I said I’m pretty sure I heard them make the name of the species? His name was Lumina Han.’ To be quite frank he was actually a bit worried about truly finding out what he was because that would mean discovering at least half of what his children had become, half the reason why they weren’t human at all. 

She blinked, ‘…All…alright, let me get this straight so I have all the facts, you saw your ancestor in a cave in China from a vision of the past as you transformed for the first time, for whatever reason it decided to show itself now…You believe you heard them claim his species as a Feathercress Lumina, after himself Lumina Han and that he was the ancestor to your mother?’ 

Harry nodded silently. 

‘Is that why you used Evans for a short period of time before we stopped you?’ 

Harry nodded awkwardly, ‘It was my Mother’s maiden name.’ 

‘Right…right’ Lacy nodded professionally (she actually read literature for a living), ‘I’m definitely going to give them a call when I get back home, for now…’ She scraped her chair across the floor to bring it closer to Harry and Zhen, ‘Zhenny do you want a cuddle with Aunty Lace?’ She even held out her hands confidently. 

Harry smiled as Zhen shifted and crawled into her lap, pressing his face against her covered breasts and grasping her long blonde hair in his fingers; sometimes he acted like such a baby, but he was Harry’s bubba. A dark blur zoomed past Harry’s chair but before he could properly comprehend Eres was clinging to Lacy’s knee one hand grasping a part of his brother’s midnight blue jumper, an anxious look on his pale features. Harry’s smile faltered a bit, ‘He’s alright Eres’ he said quietly. 

 

Eres’ ashen head turned slowly to face him and Harry nodded confidently, ‘he’s alright, he’s just a bit tired now I think, I just didn’t want to leave him upstairs by himself yet; you know how Papa gets sometimes.’ Eres nodded silently, his hand tightening however on Zhen’s jumper; Harry said no more.


End file.
